


The Trouble With Maths

by songlin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drabble, First Kiss, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 22:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventy-two minutes ago, Sherlock sent a text message. "I owe you a thousand apologies. SH"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble With Maths

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the fantastic gleeta-anderlark on Tumblr, whose request this was.
> 
> In Russian [here.](http://ficbook.net/readfic/1465965)

There are seventeen steps to the second floor of 221B Baker Street. The sixth is squeaky and the eleventh is one clumsy fall away from a solid re-nailing being necessary rather than merely recommendable, but neither John nor Mrs. Hudson appear to have bothered to fix it in the three years since Sherlock last mounted the stairs.

Seventy-two minutes ago, Sherlock sent a text message, the first of its kind in thirty-seven months, two weeks, three days and nine hours. It consisted of a total of six words, thirty-four characters.

_I owe you a thousand apologies. SH_

The remnants of John’s phone are scattered across the landing. Sherlock smirks, but feels something twist inside of him at the same time. He reaches for the doorknob.

The door swings open before he gets to it. John is behind it.

Where Sherlock goes from here is entirely dependent on what John does next, and Sherlock is not at all sure what that is going to be. John’s jaw is working in a way Sherlock cannot quite read, and Sherlock calculates that there’s about a 67% chance that he is about to be slugged across the face very, very hard.

“Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes,” John snarls at last and seizes the lapels of Sherlock’s coat.

Sherlock screws his face up preparing for the blow but makes no effort to avoid it, which is how he is caught completely off-guard when John mashes his mouth to his.

This movement takes approximately 0.43 seconds, after which Sherlock’s eyes fly open for a brief period of 1.24 seconds. It takes him 2.36 seconds to bring his hands up and grip John’s elbows as tightly as he can, and John sighs at the exact same moment. Neither of them move at all for a rather long spell: 5.78 seconds, to be exact. All in all, their first kiss lasts 9.81 seconds, and Sherlock counts every one.

This is how he knows that John punched him precisely at the ten-second mark.


End file.
